February 1
To everything there is a time: a time to give birth and to die, to plant and to uproot, to weep and to laugh. Whoever accepts the time finds peace under the sun.
Ecclesiastes – Qoheleth (freely rendered)
Listening mode
To everything there is a time: a time to give birth and to die, to plant and to uproot, to weep and to laugh. Whoever accepts the time finds peace under the sun.
Some things end without anyone ending them. A friendship in which you used to write to each other every week now gets by on two messages a year. You didn't argue, and neither of you let the other down. Still, you don't know whether this is a pause or already a goodbye.
From the inside, that is hard to answer. If you get in touch, it may turn out that everything is still there. Or you talk politely about things that no longer concern either of you. If you leave it, your very silence might decide what would otherwise have stayed open.
To yield to a time, you have to know which time it is. Often you recognise that only once it has passed. Until then you act in a situation that has not yet been decided, and your acting, too, contributes to the decision.
Maybe you write today. The reply comes quickly and warmly and ends with the line that you really must see each other soon. You have written that line to each other more than once before.
